Balancing Motherhood and Work

Recently I read an article addressing the issue of why so many women leave the workforce after we become mothers. It’s not something corporate honchos talk about in interviews—unless they slip—but you can bet behind closed doors they assumption is that hiring a woman who will soon be a mother is a waste of resources.

I can’t really argue with this stereotyping. I know plenty of women who leave their jobs after they have children. Sometimes it’s because they want to be stay-at-home moms. Sometimes it’s because paying for childcare takes their whole salary, so what’s the point? More often than not, new moms find that parenting is really hard and exhausting. Women can’t do it all. Men can’t either, but it’s more typical for women, who have the baby, to quit when a choice between the parents must be made.

The interesting point in the article is that new research shows that when women have access to paid maternity leave, they tend to go back to work and keep working. Too many women I know didn’t have this option. Paid maternity leave says something about our values as a society. When we pay parents to stay home with newborn children it says 1) we value parenthood, 2) we value children, 3) we value women in the workforce.

Did you have paid maternity leave? Did it make a difference in whether or not you went back to work after your first child was born?